Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Stanton is new. We are just taking over Stanton now. The other authorities we’ve had for a couple of years, five years, at least five years.

Thanks for that information. What happens when we take it over in terms of costs? Do we just bill them? Does TSC just bill them as they do other departments?

Mr. Chair, chargeback rates have been established in the Government of the Northwest Territories by the TSC and we use those chargeback rates for the authority.

Presumably they used to cover that from their own funds and they did their own thing. Are the chargebacks, do we know, covering these new costs as we take them over, or are we having to fill in a bit? Thank you.

We believe that it is going to work out, but we are in a pilot for three months. That will give us a better sense of the actual costs, but we believe what they are spending and what we charge is going to balance out. [Microphone turned off.]

Thanks. Just quickly for clarity, I assume the Minister is talking about Stanton, not Deh Cho and Sahtu which we have longer experience with. Is there anything to add on those? Thank you.

As I have indicated, we’ve been doing the other two authorities for five years or more, and they fit pretty much exactly in a similar capacity to the other departments that we are responsible for as well.

I didn’t hear the timing of the three months’ work that’s happening now or the future, but I think the committee would be interested in how that pilot goes. What is the schedule? I think we heard in the Department of Health that the plan is to incorporate all of the health authorities. Is that true for all authorities in Education and so on? Thank you.

March 31st is basically

the end of the three months, so we will have a better sense within a month. With respect to are we planning to take on any additional health or education boards, I will go to Ms. Gault.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Ms. Gault.

Thank you, Ms. Gault. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you for that information. I would say Health is very keen, based on our discussions in Health. It is understandable. If we could standardize so many things across our authorities, it would clearly help out this government in many ways. I hope that is possible.

My next question was: What is the schedule for bringing them on side? I guess we’re not at that point yet. I guess I would encourage the Minister to give that support. I am sure he can see the opportunities for efficiencies that standardization brings. We clearly have the capacity or the capability to take that on. That’s all I had. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.

Mr. Chair, agreed.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Moving on with questions on this page I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask the Minister, in light of what we are discussing on another front, the Mackenzie Valley fibre optic line and what we see here for the Technology Service Centre.

In our small communities, we have different departments that belong to us and different authorities and health and education boards. Everybody is using different systems. It costs us quite a bit of money in those small communities. Is there a system now being looked at where everybody will be using that will cut down costs for some of the innovative concepts and ideas that are being discussed, like the Mackenzie Valley fibre optic line and the Technical Service Centre would be taking advantage of these new types of technology that are coming on line here?

I know in one of my communities, I have noticed a high number of invoices and money that is costing the Government of the Northwest Territories in order to have this type of service in our education, our health centres and municipal governments. It is draining our budget fairly good here. I’m looking forward to seeing some of these cost-saving measures in this area that will be helping us out quite a bit here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Abernethy.

Mr. Chair, the lead on the Mackenzie Valley fibre optic link is actually the Department of Finance. We see ourselves as being a potential client. Right now, actually it was late in the life of the 16th Assembly, early in the life of the

17th Assembly, the department managed to obtain

an agreement on a more formal and greater degree of bandwidth, which I think has helped a lot of the GNWT programs and services. Different

departments have different requirements for bandwidth based on the programming they have in place. We have all heard about the challenges the health system is facing with respect to bandwidth for some of the medical health records and medical tools that are available.

We would be a client just like everybody else. It’s when we see opportunity here to increase bandwidth speed and efficiency of our programs that it will give us opportunities to have greater degrees of teleconferencing and other tools that are available. We are with you. We are a client on this one as well. We see much opportunity should this and when this goes ahead.

Thank you for clarification, Mr. Minister. As a client, what does it cost for a community of Deline to be clients that will now operate with the bandwidth? What is it costing our government now to have that service in that community to deliver our programs and services such as telehealth or Education? Do you have some kind of number?

Thank you. Some of that falls into other departments, like Education, Culture and Employment has some agreements for bandwidth so that they can run some of their school programs, and Health and Social Services is often in the same boat. With respect to the Technology Service Centre and offices that we’re responsible for, I don’t have that specific detail in front of me, but I will look to see if we can break it down to that degree. I’m not actually 100 percent sure that we can break it down to that degree because we’re buying bandwidth in a fairly large scale, but I will attempt to get that detail for the Member and committee.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Committee, we’re on page 7-21, Public Works and Services, activity summary, Technology Service Centre, operations expenditure summary, $1.282 million.